RANDOM WALK

Downstairs, the scene is about what you would expect on a perfect spring evening, a Friday, at the Union League Club: DuPage County Board Chairman Gayle Franzen, a Republican, is greeting his extended family in town for a son's wedding.

Upstairs, in the sixth-floor, walnut-veneered dining room -- above the silence-enforced library with biographies of Capone and Capote side-by-side -- the stage is set for another brand of matchmaking.

Honest Abe is staring down from a portrait, and the cigar smoke is rising among the "Banks of the Gasconade" and other original art.

In a makeshift ring under the chandeliers, it's Boxing Night at the Union League Club.

Confronted with what some would call more enlightened times, the century-old ritual faded after World War II. But, like cigar smoking itself (and George Foreman), Boxing Night is back big-time.

Actually a series of nights each May, Boxing Night got a third session last year and a fourth this year to meet growing demand.

Now, the University Club and Chicago Athletic Assn. are at it, too.

On tap this fall: a Union League appearance (though not in the ring) by former heavyweight champ Smokin' Joe Frazier, whose Philadelphia stable will spar with local contenders.

Not all the attendees -- 1,250 over four nights -- are men behaving badly, though one tuxedoed table at ringside resembles a fraternity smoker. There's also a smattering of women -- at least one with her own stogie -- seeing and being seen.

"The only thing the boxers don't like is the cigars, but they have to live with it," says Mike Pernick, president of Chicago Golden Gloves, an organization that supplies amateur fighters -- in head gear designed to prevent injuries (even ear bites) -- for the three-round bouts.

A few Boxing Night alums -- practitioners of what is sometimes known as the Sweet Science -- go on to bigger and better rings: Nate Jones, for example, last year won the Olympics bronze medal in the heavyweight division. But most are well-advised to keep their day jobs.

At $85 a customer, revenues subsidize less-lucrative club activities, including children's programs and -- talk about retro -- tap dancing on Monday nights. "I never thought it would work," says Mr. McCabe, "but it's taken on a life of its own."